Guest Post: Tips for Traveling to Spain

We asked our friend Pauley if he'd like to be a guest writer on our blog covering anything about our trip to Spain with him. He accepted the challenge. This is what he had to share:

Tips for Traveling to Spain

by Pauley

Pauley reflecting on his trip to Spain

If you struggled with jet lag as much as I did, coffee will be your friend in Spain. Fortunately, there are an abundance of coffee shops and bakeries. You usually won’t have to walk more than a block in most parts of Madrid to find one.

Often times most of the coffee shops won’t have menus, but you can easily order an espresso or coffee with milk (café con leche). Unless you otherwise specify, they will likely assume that you will be drinking your coffee there. If you’d like to take your coffee with you, simply say “Quiero un café con leche para llevar, por favor.”

Another item to note is that if you plan on drinking your coffee in the store, they will not give you your bill unless you ask for it. This also applies to restaurants. You can ask for your bill by saying “La cuenta, por favor.” I had a slight embarrassing experience at a coffee shop where I was handed my coffee and I stood there for about 30 seconds with a 20 Euro bill in my hand while the staff pretended I wasn’t there. I finally took my coffee and sat down.

Another difference I noticed is that the Midwestern friendliness didn’t translate. Greetings here are often, “Hi, how are you?” Early in my trip, I would often greet the store clerks by saying “Hola, como está?” I learned that was often followed by a blank look from the employee. Sticking with just a simple “Hola” seemed to be more acceptable.

Culture differences can be awkward and difficult at first, especially if you don’t have anyone to walk you through them. Once learned though, it becomes pretty easy to fit in.

A 24 Hour Fiasco

Our flight didn't leave Madrid until 7:30 pm, but Pauley left for the airport on Sunday morning. In just a few minutes after him leaving the apartment, we missed him. The place, and Spain in general, just didn't feel the same without him. It sounds kind of silly, but it's true. Transition periods are always weird. 

We had been told by our Airbnb host that we needed to leave the apartment at 12 pm, as she had to clean for another guest arriving later that day. We waited around for her, so that we could take advantage of the wifi as long as possible. When she wasn't there by 2:30 pm, we decided to grab some lunch and then take off for the airport. It had begun to drizzle so we took our grocery store lunch finds to the tree lined atrium of the train station. There we consumed our picnic lunch and played Hanabi until it was time to take a train to the airport. It was fun. 

Our picnic lunch. Oh, and there's a partially drunk bottle of red wine in that white bag. 

It was good that we arrived at the airport early, because lines for checking into our airline were long. Niki Airlines did not have an efficient check in system at all. We weren't checking any bags, but still had to wait in a huge line just for our tickets. This inefficiency continued with chaotic boarding of the airplane. Between that and a gate change we took off at least 20 minutes late. Not impressed. 

Good thing we had arrived at the airport early. Because, I also got stopped at security, because of a bag of rice I had in my backpack that couldn't be identified in the scanner. A partial bag of rice? Yes. Costing only 1 euro? Yes. The security people were also a bit incredulous. But, hey I didn't want to buy more rice in the next city to make meals if we had a perfectly usable amount left from this part of the trip. It was legal to bring through the airport, but they ran some tests to be sure there weren't traces of bomb dust or something. And, I got to practice my Spanish with the security staff. The rice, my backpack, and my Spanish were all passable. Yay. 

We were happy to arrive in Vienna, and ready to make our way to our Airbnb. I had mapped out our train route, and we found the ticketing area. Frustratingly, the ticket machine was supposed to take credit card, but would not accept that or change of 20 euro and higher. We ended up having to buy a small fry at the McDonalds in the airport to split the 20 euro bill and buy a ticket. Arrgh. 

After the ticket was in hand we discovered that our late arrival into Vienna had caused more issues. It was late enough that the trains were not running frequently. The next train out of the airport wasn't until 12:08 am (40 minutes later), and we weren't sure if the next train we needed to catch would still be running. We frantically used the free wifi to figure out other public transit options. Vienna has a confusing maze of trams, buses, trains, and subways. There are several maps, but not one that shows all the forms of transit. It's difficult to figure out how they all connect. The website directions were difficult to piece together as well. Arrgh. 

We ended up getting on the 12:08 train when it arrived and seeing where it would take us. We got off at the stop suggested in my directions, and managed to board our next train, which left one minute later. It was the last train of the night and we had caught it just in time. Whew. We were very thankful. 

We had one more train to catch, but we quickly saw that the one we wanted had stopped running for the night. Brandon determine we could walk 3.5 miles to our Airbnb from the station. With our backpacks it would probably take us an hour. I was hesitant, because it was late at night, we were tired, and we didn't know what kind of neighborhoods we'd be walking through. We saw signs for taxis and decided to price those out first. Thankfully, there was a line of taxis at the station. And, for just 15 euro we could make it to our destination. We gratefully accepted, and I told Brandon this might just be the best 15 euro we spent on our trip thus far. I was so happy to reach our Airbnb. 

As a side note, we found out the next day that if we had walked we would have been walking down streets surrounding a royal palace. Very upscale, and not scary at all! But, you never know. 

Our Airbnb host had given us wonderfully specific instructions on how to enter the house at our late hour. Everything worked easily, and we soon found ourselves enjoying our little oasis of a room and bed. 

But, our trials were not over. Once having wifi we discovered that our Airbnb in Munich was cancelling our reservation due to water damage. And, we were arriving in Munich in four days. And, there was a major Oktoberfest event going on in Munich making it difficult to find affordable Airbnb reservations. And, there was the Bauma expo further reducing accommodation options. Seriously? It felt like we were having a cursed 24 hours. 

We went to bed and dealt with it in the morning. Airbnb offered the amount we had paid for the Munich accommodation plus 10% to help find a new place to stay. I sent several polite, but clearly irritated emails to Airbnb stating that 10% was not enough in this difficult situation. I also started making requests to various Airbnb hosts. I found a great accommodation option, but decided to wait a couple hours to book it in the hopes that Airbnb would get back to me with a better offer than 10%. When Airbnb did get back to me, it was already booked. I was annoyed, but more mollified when I saw that Airbnb had refunded the amount paid for the Munich accommodation and sent me a $200 coupon code to help find a new place. 

Despite the $200 my remaining accommodation options were dim. It was difficult to find a place for three people (Brandon, my brother, and myself), so I had to start looking for two person places that had couches and beg them to accept three people. A few people responded with sympathy, but it was clear that everyone was jacking their prices up due to accommodation being a hot commodity. There were several people advertising their living rooms for twice the amount I had paid for the accommodation that had fallen through, a large bedroom with actual beds for three people. Brandon checked hotel prices and they were even worse. 

I was feeling defeated, but I was persistent. I checked every few hours and hoped new listings would pop up. Finally, I saw a new listing for a full apartment with a double bed. The couch in the apartment looked small, but I hoped we could scrounge for other things in the apartment to fashion a bed for my brother. At least we wouldn't be in the host's way if we had the apartment to ourselves. And, the price wasn't doubled like so many of the others since it was a new listing. I sent a message immediately and explained the situation hoping that we would be accepted. Within half an hour the host responded with sympathy to my plight and we were able to book the place. Huzzah! She even offered to see if she could find another bed somewhere in the basement for my brother. So kind! 

Instead of being just 3 km from where my parents are staying in Munich, the accommodation is nearly 7km away, but it is on the same subway line. Other pros include: 

• We have the whole apartment to ourselves
• The booking ended up being cheaper than our cancelled place due to the coupon code
• Our train arrives in Munich at 6:10 am and our host is allowing us to check-in anytime between 6:30 am and 9 am rather than waiting until more normal afternoon check-in times 

Are all these pros worth the stress of finding a new accommodation on short notice with mostly limited, expensive options? Definitely not. I'm just glad all this is behind us, and hope we don't have anymore last minute cancellations or transportation nightmares. Our 24 hour fiasco of high stress appears to be over, and we can actually enjoy our time in Vienna now. 

Enjoying tea and Manner hazelnut creme filled wafers provided by our host to welcome us

Wanderings Around Madrid: Other Things We Saw and Did

Madrid is a city that causes you to wander either intentionally or accidentally with its maze of streets running in all directions. Here are some things we did and saw along the way that we haven't mentioned yet: 

We went to the Reina Sofia and Prado Museums during their free admission hours, and the Prado was our favorite. We don't have photos from either, because it wasn't permitted.

"King" Pauley wearing his Grand Rapids Football Club t-shirt at the Real Madrid stadium

Walking the streets of Madrid

A fountain in Parque del Oeste

Waiting to take a 2.5 km gondola ride from Parque del Oeste to Casa de Campo. The gondola had an audio program where it took on a personality with a creepily, enthusiastic voice (think Dora the Explorer) and narrated the sights of Madrid. 

Pauley prepping his camera for the gondola ride

A rose garden near the gondola that has yet to bloom

Part of Madrid with a mountain range in the background

Caught in the act of taking pictures

Overhead view of the river cutting through Madrid with the palace in the background

Looking back from over Casa De Campo park

View from the hill in Casa de Campo where the gondola deposited us

Brandon running down the hill pretending he's on a mountain bike

Some cool looking trees at the bottom of the hill

Testing the playground equipment

Brandon admiring a pirate ship playground in the park. Ahoy!

Brandon and I checked out a rock climbing gym in Madrid. Honestly, it was a disappointment. There were only a handful of top ropes and barely any routes set anywhere throughout the gym. We spent most of our time amusing ourselves by creating routes for each other. 

Hanging out in the boulder area making up routes for Brandon to try 

And, finally, a very important part of our trip: The elf figurine in our apartment that we kept hiding in random places for each other to find and be scared by

The Madrid Metro

Like with most of our travels, when we first arrived in Madrid we were a little intimidated with getting to our place and navigating the city's Metro/public transit system. The notes we had written down about how to get to our first destination did not quite match up with what we first encountered. But before we even boarded our first train a nice Metro worker guy handed us a map and it quickly made sense. In fact out of all the places we have traveled to, Madrid's Metro system was among the easiest to figure out.

A typical entrance to a Madrid underground Metro station

The Madrid Metro system is nice for several reasons. First, there are quite a few stations where transferring between lines is possible. And those various transfer points are spread out across Madrid instead of being all focused on one central location. This may be confusing at first, but once you get a map in hand, it makes it very handy because there are always multiple ways to get to your final destination. It's nice to have options.

Second, the trains run very frequently, at least in the more central area we were in. There is no need to memorize a schedule. If you miss a train, there will likely be a another one within 5 minutes. Related to that point is that there are no express trains as far as we know, aka trains that skip over stations. That is always such a huge pain in cities where you not only have to worry about which line to get on, but also whether or not that particular train will stop at your station. Maybe that sucks for people's who's stops are further out of the city, but it was nice for us not to worry about. 

The Madrid Metro system map ( A Handy PDF )

Getting a Metro ticket is pretty straight forward. We always used one of the automated ticketing machines. There are many language options, so we were easily able to switch it to English instructions. The machines take both cash (EURO) and credit card. With a credit card if the transaction is high enough, it may require the use of a PIN which many US credit cards don't have yet. Luckily ours worked just fine. The main two options we were interested in were single tickets or a 10 pack. We used the single ticket the first day to get out of the airport since there is an additional fee to use the airport stations and we weren't sure how that would affect our 10 pack usage. But after that we all bought a 10 pack ticket for around €12.20 each to use over the course of our week in Madrid, which made life super easy. 

The automated Metro ticket machines 

A typical Madrid Metrobus ticket.

Another nice thing about the Metro system was it didn't matter if you got lost. With a single ticket you could make as many transfers as you needed to until you finally existed a station. All the transfers areas are connected past the turnstiles. So even if we had jumped on the wrong line, it would have not been a big deal to jump on another train to take you back. (Note: We never got a chance to use a bus, so I'm not sure if the same is true for those) 

Transfers consist of getting off the train you are on, walking up and then down several flights of stairs or using an escalator, following/finding the color coordinated signs for the new line that you want, and figuring out which direction on that line you want to go; which was usually indicated by the station that was on the end of the line in that direction. The direction of the line you wanted was probably the hardest part to figure out, and even that wasn't too bad assuming you had a map.

A typical Metro underground ticketing/turnstile area

Some of the newer/fancier sliding door "turnstiles"

To use your ticket, simply insert it into the side of the turnstiles. If it is the oldschool turnstile you can walk partially or all the way through and retrieve your ticket from the other side. If it is one of the newer sliding door systems, you pull your ticket out from a slot on top of the system and the doors will open for you to talk through. All the systems have a little display to tell you how many uses you had left on your multi-use ticket.

A train at one of the few stations outside

A pretty typical underground station

And that's the Madrid Metro system. I don't know why I wanted to go into this much detail about the Madrid Metro. I was just impressed with how it worked, so I wanted to write about it. I hope someone else might find this info useful or interesting too.

Madrid Street Art

The area of Madrid we were staying in had lots of street art on the walls or doors of many of the businesses. We thought it was a nice departure from the usual incomprehensible graffiti that comes with large cities. Below are a few of our favorites.

The Green Cat

A bar for our friend Tito!

I don't know what the picture was, but I was intrigued by the caption.

A very cool use of the mail-slot 

Parking Garage

A bunch of animals all peacefully hanging out, just like our theoretical future pets

My favorite: An xkcd style picture which I'm using to depict the end of this post.

Valencia and the Mediterranean Sea

We had seen a lot of Madrid and Pauley really wanted to see the Mediterranean Sea, so after much deliberation we made a day trip to Valencia. Valencia is a coastal town east of Madrid which you can reach by speed train in 1.5 hours or by car in 3.5 hours. Unfortunately, the speed train is expensive and even more exorbitant when you make spontaneous plans. Over $100 per ticket? Yikes! 

So, we rented a car with a GPS for around $20 plus gas. It was so cheap, because it was a manual economy car, a Toyota Yaris I believe. I don't know how to drive a manual, and Brandon wasn't comfortable with city driving, so that left the driving to Pauley. So, now he can cross that off his bucket list. Drive a manual car in a foreign country. Check. If it was even on his bucket list. Probably not. Thankfully, Spaniards drive on the same side of the road as Americans. We had that going for us. 

The man at the rental car company told us we were crazy to drive to and from Valencia in one day. We assured him that a drive of this length is normal for the United States, so it wouldn't be a big deal. He still seemed very skeptical and gave us a lot of advice. We were planning to park outside the city and ride the metro in to avoid traffic. He set up our GPS and re-routed us to an area in the city with free parking, saying we didn't have enough time in the day to park outside the city. We decided to take his advice and see how it went. He was probably still shaking his head at us while we were driving away. 

Three crazy friends road-tripping in Spain

Spanish town on the way to Valencia

Spanish countryside with wind-turbines

Tunnel through some red cliffs

Aqua blue reservoir

We made it to Valencia and found parking pretty easily. Pauley did have to swear a bit as he maneuvered the traffic circles in the city that seemed to have a no lanes marked and a free-for-all mentality. However, I'd say that overall all went smoothly and Pauley was a valiant driver. 

After parking we walked a couple miles to find Valencia Central Market, that Pauley had read about. The building was beautiful. I loved all the painted tiles and ironwork. We were hoping to pick up some lunch there, but the marked contained more raw food than prepared dishes. On the way to the Market we had spotted a craft beer restaurant called Birra & Blues, so we decided to try out the menu del dia there instead. The portions of the menu del dia were large and filling, and it took us nearly 1.5 hours to eat lunch. Yes, 1.5 hours. It was classic, slow paced Spanish time. 

Valencia Central Market

Busy, busy, busy market

Brandon's taco 1st course and our double red craft brew

Brandon wanted some Valencia orange juice before leaving the area, so we went on a mission for that. He had fallen in love with it when he was in the Valencia area of Spain several years ago. We believed him, since there were orange trees lining many of the city streets. By the time we got out of lunch, siesta or nap time was in full swing, so many of the cafes with orange juice were closed. But, we managed to find one and satisfy Brandon. It was delicious, and tasted to me like a cross between tangerine and orange. 

Brandon happily sipping on his Valencia orange juice under an orange tree

With much of our time taken up by lunch we decided to just hit a couple highlights around Valencia. Pauley had done some research on things in the area, and hadn't found much that interested him other than the Mediterranean. I really wanted to go to Museo Fallero, because of Brandon's description of the giant, several building stories high floats for Festival of Las Fallas when he was there in March several years ago. To save time, we took the metro back to the car and then drove to the museum. The Valencia metro was much more confusing than the Madrid one, but we persevered and figured it out. 

Hanging out with orange juice in the Valencia metro

Pauley survived parallel parking near the museum, and we went in to check it out. The fallas museum shows a piece of a float (or falla) that has been pardoned in the festival each year. All the rest of the pieces and floats are burned during the festival. The fallas started out to be moral in nature, with the burning symbolizing destruction of vices. Now there are both satirical and more artistic displays. You can read more about it here or just google images of the event. 

Pardoned figures from a falla

The full size falla that the figure above was pardoned from. Look how the falla is taller than the building. Later the whole structure will be burned. 

Picture of another full size falla with a creepy cat

Grumpy, old men

This one was pretty funny

The figures are so detailed, and they're just made out of cardboard, wax, foam, and/or cork...very flammable materials for the eventual burning. 

A favorite of Brandon's 

I can relate to this one... thanks mom.

In honor of Jacques Cousteau. Look at that cute little penguin. 

A poster advertising the festival

After the museum, we headed to the Mediterranean Sea. We found parking and a park to access the beach. It was a beautiful, warm day, but the wind from the sea kept the beach quite cool. We put our feet in the water, and enjoyed the fresh salty air. I think Pauley would say he was a bit disappointed by the Mediterranean. It didn't look more special than other bodies of water, and the sand is not nearly as nice as that of Lake Michigan. But, he can say he's been. 

View of Valencia from the beach

View down the other side of the beach

Candid shot

Pauley preparing to dip his feet in the Mediterranean

Feeling the cold Mediterranean water

Things are getting crazy

The wind was intense

Standard Moonrise Kingdom pose

Pauley's "By The Sea" glamour shot

Good times

Before making our 3.5 hour drive back to Madrid we stopped back in the city to check out some cool, modern architecture we had seen near the fallas museum. I think it looked like something out of one of the new Star Trek movies. 

Valencia architecture complete with palm tree

Modern bridge and the Agora, a building for exhibitions, sport events, and concerts

Red birds kept in a sphere

There were a ton of pools around the complex

Doesn't this look like something out of the Star Trek films? 

A Vulcan salute seemed appropriate

Wide walkways between space-like buildings

Star Trek continued

Despite the skepticism from the car rental guy, and admittedly some on my part too, we had an adventurous day in Valencia and made it to and from without any issues. In fact, as Brandon pointed out, it felt just like a road trip in the United States. Just three friends driving down the normal side of the road and into a big city. It's true. I think Spain was starting to feel less foreign to us at that point. Vive la adventura!